One Shy of Seven: Paris

Shari, Te & ME!

A big shout out to my friends Raman and Christie! Raman was kind enough this morning to give me a friendly kick in the ____ to get my blog posts back up and running. I’ve wanted to write but have found myself updating on facebook more and more… the dichotomy between blogging and facebooking really is blurred!

Quick plug! Raman and Christie have started a blog of their own about their adventures as a young couple who recently moved from San Francisco to New York City. I find this blog to be highly entertaining so if you think it is something you’d be into check it out here: http://bigcity-littledog.blogspot.com/

So it HAS been a month since I updated the blog in Greece. A lot has happened! After sending Portia back to the states Paul and I hopped a flight to Paris. In Paris we had penciled in some time with our good friends Shari and Te Anna. Shari and Te were on our Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand Intrepid Travel group tour. Like most Australians we’ve met they are traveling for a year or so. The plan was for them to tour for a while before they settle temporarily in London to make some extra travel money. Its amazing how travel will open doors because one of our other friends from the Intrepid trip got them their first job in London at a restaurant.

So Shari and Te flew in for the weekend and the four of us set out to see Paris. The first night we decided a “proper” welcoming to the city was in order. We met up near the Eiffel tower. Since it was already late evening we grabbed a few bottles of wine (yup they’re only three euro each) some cheese and baguettes and spent the entire night sitting on the lawn in front of the Eiffel tower catching each other up on our separate travels since south east asia.

The following day we set out on bikes to see the sights. Paris has an awesome city bike program where you can rent them by the hour and drop them off all over the place at these city bike kiosks. This worked out perfectly for us. We grabbed a few bikes after seeing Notre Dame and headed toward the Arch de Triumph (sp?). We hit the louvre, lounged through numerous parks, walked along the river and just enjoyed the sunny day in the city.

The following day we made our way to Palace of Versailles. We lucked out that day because all of the garden fountains were going to be turned on. This turned out to be pretty expensive for our budget but I’m glad I was able to see the palace where Marie Antoinette lived. It was amazing how huge the palace was and how immaculately kept every inch of the land was. The fountains were amazing and we all proceeded to walk every path we could to enjoy all of the greenery.

A note on Paris. I loved it. It was one of my favorite “bigger cities” that I visited in Europe. I’m not a lover of big cities. I love San Francisco but that is because its location is perfect. To me if I’m going to live in a city it needs to be in a close proximity to the outdoors. NYC is my biggest nightmare, as I always felt trapped by long island, Connecticut and New Jersey. All of these places have their own attributes but for me San Francisco offers you the gateway to all of what California has to offer; skiing in Tahoe, wine tasting in Napa, hiking in every direction, beaches, cultures from around the world, big sports teams (some that actually win!)… the list goes on and on. Anyway, what I’m getting at is that Paris was the first city that I really thought about living in. I could see myself truly enjoying that city for a period of time in my life. I was shocked I felt that way after I left and I’m still shocked right now as I write.

Shari and Te headed back to London and Paul and I hopped a flight down to Nice.